‘I would like to be in a relationship’

Chelsea Handler tells David Skipwith how therapy helped her deal with Donald Trump — and allowed her to date again

US COMEDIAN

Chelsea Handler is fresh out of therapy and on the lookout for potential Kiwi suitors.

The hilariously brash author, activist, documentary-maker and former talk show host is bringing her new Life Will Be the Death of Me stand-up show to Auckland’s Town Hall on October 9.

Handler put available Kiwi men on notice last weekend, posting a now-deleted video to Instagram in which she outlined what she is looking for in a partner.

“Oh hello, this is to all my potential suitors in New Zealand,” she said.

“I’m coming there for my show and then I’ll be there for three days following. My cousin will be with me but never mind her.

“I am sexually experienced and looking for a partner who is tall, strong and can speak a little bit of English.”

Taking the same name as her #1 New York Times best-selling book, Handler’s show delves into her year of self-discovery, in which she underwent psychotherapy to deal with her anger over Donald Trump’s presidency and confront the lingering pain of her brother’s death, which she claims stymied her ability to find true love.

“I just became unhinged after the election and I had so much outrage, it just became unliveable to be that angry all the time,” Handler told TimeOut from her Los Angeles home.

“I sat down with Dr Dan Siegel to talk about my anger and then after a few sessions. it started to unravel what I was really upset about, which was my brother dying when I was 9 years old, which was unresolved and unexamined.

“So it was an awakening, in a sense and I welcomed it because all of a sudden I was able to cope with people and not everyone was so annoying all of the time, which was my original complaint.”

The death of her eldest brother, Chet, during a hiking trip in 1984, devastated Handler’s “dysfunctional” family and saw her put up walls that later impacted on her ability to open up to people and maintain relationships.

“I saw my father fall apart after my brother died. I saw my whole family kind of fall apart,” she says.

“I just looked at what was happening around me and thought, ‘Okay, if everyone else is going to be weak, then I’m going to be strong.’

“So it was a symptom of me shutting down emotionally and not allowing myself to talk about it because I couldn’t be vulnerable, because I thought that was weak.”

Handler says her therapy helped her develop coping mechanisms that allow her to be more tolerant and accepting of others — even

Trump supporters.

“I have a lot of breathing exercises now but I’ve also learned about empathy, compassion and patience. I meditate now. I do all of the things that I used to make fun of.”

After wearing her single status as a badge of honour, the 44-year-old is finally ready to begin dating and hopes to find happiness in a relationship. “I’m definitely way more openminded and I am able to admit that, yes, I would like to be in a relationship, which is a sentence that I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say before.

“Now if I go out on a date with a guy and I don’t like his belt or the way that he sat down, or held his fork, or whatever excuse I was usually making up, now I’m not allowed to make those judgements.

“I have to sit through it and actually get to know a person without judging them based on something that’s completely irrelevant. So I’m learning patience in that way.”